


Isolated Insanity Ward

by Kalkay



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Azkaban, Bellatrix only shows up briefly at the end, Community: HPFT, Dark, Fear, Gen, Imprisonment, Insanity, Keeping people sane is hard, Minor Character, No I don't know who the large man is, Prison, Wrongful Imprisonment, mostly canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-07
Updated: 2016-06-07
Packaged: 2018-07-12 21:33:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7123312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kalkay/pseuds/Kalkay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>Wonderful banner by Laurraawwrr@TDA</p>
</div><div class="center">
  <p>
    <br/>
    <img/>
    <br/>
  </p>
</div><i>"Stanley Shunpike. Shunpike. Stanley Stanley Shunpike. Stanley Shunpike. SHUNPIKE." </i><p>  <i>"Please...leave me alone."</i> </p>
<p>No one ever talks about how one is tossed into Azkaban or life behind its walls.</p>
<p>Mind your sanity.<br/>Watch your step.<br/>Beware of moss.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Isolated Insanity Ward

I remember watching as Rufus Scrimgeour busted through my door. I remember watching my belongings as they were being torn out of their resting places. I remember it not making much of a difference, as the room was already a mess. I remember my arm being pulled as I was ‘escorted’ out of my home. I remember that before I was pulled away into a mess of disapparating bodies I saw them rip open my bedroom door.  
  
People always talk about escaping from Azkaban and how it was achieved. Where the holes in security are and how they need to get more protection and precautions. How the prisoners aren’t watched closely enough and on and on and on. The conversation is never ending among the people on the bus. However, no one puts much thought into how one is put into Azkaban. What happens when one arrives at Azkaban? Do you have to go through some orientation process? Does someone welcome you? I recall the thoughts running through my mind as I darted my eyes around the small room.  
  
I don’t remember much of the next several minutes but a bright flash as my picture was taken. I don’t remember changing into the striped rags that I now wore. I don’t remember moving to a different room or being apperated anywhere. I don’t remember seeing a camera. That’s probably why no one talks about getting into Azkaban. They don’t remember it. But was this Azkaban or the Ministry?  
  
I didn’t recognize anything. I don’t know how I got from that tiny room to this even smaller one. The room was plain, cold and unwelcoming. It seemed far too empty and dark. It didn’t have any feel of comfort as I stood there in the overwhelmingly silent. The room, it made you want to scream. You could practically feel your life drain out of you into despair, just by looking at. Little did I know that this would soon be the place that I felt the safest. Then this safe haven would then fall apart in my mind and be where all my fears came to life.  
  
I blinked my eyes trying to adjust them to the barely lit room.  
  
The concrete walls were patched with moss. I was still unsure as to where I was but assumed it wasn’t used very often. The person who had hold of my arm ever since my door was broken down, pushed me further into the room and closed the door behind me. I heard it locking. It sounded exactly like the vaults at Gringotts with multiple gears and mechanisms turning. My senses were heightened from the adrenaline and I picked up on every rat scurrying about and slap of each wave hitting the rocks. The air was stale and tasted of salt.  
  
“Stanley Shunpike.” My name rang out from every corner of the small cramped room. I flinched as I tried to locate the point at which the harsh monotone voice originated. “You’re are sentenced to this cell in Azkaban on suspicion of Death Eater activity based on statements made by you at The Hog’s Head pub about insider knowledge of the Death Eaters plans.”  
  
“I’d been a drinking drunk duck! I know nothing bout anything bout them!” I yelled at the walls, stumbling over my words, trying to convince them of the truth. I continued to plea my case as I stumbled around the room pounding on each wall. All I got in return was silence. “I don’t know anything! I was just drunk. I’d been fibbing an’ a showing off! I’m not any death eater!” I continued yelling at the empty room.  
  
After doing this for hours on end I lost my voice and a great deal of energy. I was determined that I would not stop until my protests were at least noticed. “I know nothin’ bout death eaters.” I continued to voice my case in a tired voice as I gave up and slumped on the floor.  
  
I was attacked with the emotions I had so far denied. The hours passed as I continued to call out my innocence in a raspy, unstable voice. When my voice had completely left, I mouthed the words; trying to push them out even though my throat ached for some moisture. I resorted to ripping off my shirt, destroying it in the process, to show that the dark mark was not present on me in a last desperate attempt.  
  
Not once did I receive any acknowledgement of my efforts to tell my story. The room remained empty and still. I wrapped myself up in my own thoughts in a corner of the room. I didn’t move for hours. There was some moss staring at me in the opposite corner. I watched it. The only other living thing in the room. Scum was the only thing capable of living in here. I watch it endlessly, hoping that it would give me some help.  
  
I couldn’t close my eyes. I couldn’t relax or get the pent up tension to release even in the slightest. I was scared and not even entirely sure why I was here anymore. The waves whispered as they calmly hit against the rocks, as though they were trying to threaten comfort upon me.  
  
“Stanley Shunpike” I could barely move in response to my name crashing in on me from every direction. Weakness finally made my body give into rest. I can’t recall what else was said as my eyelids slid down, my mind entering an empty, despairingly dreamless sleep.  
  
I don’t know if it was a few minutes later, hours or days but I was pulled out of the restless sleep to the sound of my name again as though nothing had changed. “Stanley Shunpike” I tried to reply only to find that I still didn’t have a voice. “Exit.”  
  
That was all that was said as the door opened to a narrow hall with stairs at the end. The hall was empty, short and only wide enough for one or two people to get through at a time. I looked up but was unable to see a ceiling, if there was one. Only darkness was held over my head. Here as well as in my cell, the only sign of life was the moss growing on the walls. My legs were weak and I walked slowly down the hall dragging my feet not knowing what was awaiting me at the end of it or at the bottom of the stairs. I didn’t really want to see what there was for me to find at either.  
  
I stopped at the top of the stairs. The sight is now burned into my mind. The stairs descended sharply, each step further down than the next. My legs locked up and I turned to go back to my cell. The door had disappeared and was replaced by a wall that matched the rest of the hall. After a few trips I found that this happened each time I left. I assume to keep the cells hidden and prevent breakouts.  
  
I started down the stairs. At the bottom I found a huge room. It was bigger than even the Great Hall. There was but one small pub table to the far left, that seemed even smaller then normal when compared to the rest of the room. Two people gathered together were talking on a single crate in the middle of the room. Their eyes followed me as I crossed the large desolate stone area to the small table.  
  
Food appeared in front of me, as it would everyday I came down here. I searched for silverware but found none. Silverware was never supplied. I fumbled with the bowls contents, trying to pick up what it held with my fingers. I remember I put more effort into that first meal then I would ever put forth during the remainder of my stay.  
  
The others that had been down here were gone. One disappeared up a set of stairs; opposite the ones I had descended, mere minutes after I sat down. I turned and watched to confirm, only to find they were missing just like the door to my cell was.  
  
The other woman sat observing me for a good fifteen minutes. Her thin lips seemed to be making a decision about me more than her heavy deep-set eyes that were buried under a mess of curly, long, wiry, dark hair. She’s the one of the few people I ever remember being shackled at all times. She only stopped watching me when she left up an even steeper set of stairs than the ones that I had come down. She ascended them as though she was going to be presented at a party and this was her grand entrance. I watched her until she along with the stairs disappeared and I was left staring at a wall.  
  
“Stanley Shunpike” My name rang out from every direction in the large empty room. I was beginning to feel like a subject that the walls were trying to build a relationship with by using their name repeatedly. The urge to respond to my name was overwhelming.  
  
“Yes?” I remember hearing my weak voice hang in the air. There was no answer, but a set of stairs appeared in the same spot that I had descended earlier. I stared at them not wanting to go back to the cramped space that was my cell. When I didn’t enter they closed up and a second set of stairs opened for a moment to allow someone entrance. Unlike all previous stairs cases that I had seen these went down.  
  
I can bring to mind him clearly. His crude way of moving about made it apparent that he did not frequently move and was probably rarely allowed to come to this room. He was a fairly large man, but not what one would consider built or heavy set. I believe that it was this combination of the two made him even more frightening.  
  
I clamored to my feet approaching the wall where I thought the set of stairs that led to my cell should be at. I stared. I couldn’t move my eyes off of him as he ate from his bowl. Silverware was not supplied for him either. He picked up the bowl using it as though it was cup, something that I had not thought of.  
  
I knew that he could feel my eyes on him. He stood up approaching me. The whole essence of his being told me that I was going to end up in pain.  
  
“Stanley Shunpike” This time I looked around for the stair well. When it opened I pulled myself up the stairs as fast as I could. I think that I can safely assume that I looked much like a rodent scrambling to find its balance as it ran away. The stairs closed up behind me and instead of being greeted to the narrow hallway, I was deposited directly into my cell.  
  
The shirt that was on my back for but a short while tripped my steps as I reentered the room. I observed that the moss seemed to have grown since I had left the small room. I’m sure it only appeared that way since the room I had previously been in had none unlike the rest of the prison.  
  
And that’s when it actually hit me.  
  
I was in prison. I was actually in Azkaban. And I wouldn’t be leaving anytime soon.  
  
I didn’t leave my cell for a long while after that. The food started to appear in there when I refused to leave my cell for the larger room for two days. I spent my days watching the moss crawl up the wall. After a week I started to move the moss around convincing myself that it was décor and making a pillow out of it. I had myself believing that the moss really was going to save me in one way or another.  
  
I knew that Azkaban was not going to be as interesting as the Knight Bus, but the lack of life I found within it’s walls was more despairing than I ever could’ve imagined.  
  
The empty room soon was filled to bursting with my every fear. I started to fear the walls, convinced that they would close in on me if I got too close. There was a spider hardly bigger than a needles head that I swore was going to eat me if I slept. When I did dare to close my eyes my imagination gripped to the sounds of the waves on the rocks and I saw my cell being flooded by water as I sat helplessly unable to move.  
  
“Stanley Shunpike” The sound of my name ringing out from every corner of the small cell drove me to tears most of the time. I pulled my make-shift moss pillow into my arms. The room had called out to me 37 times now. It was my only way to measure time in the solitary room and from what I could tell the walls called twice a day.  
  
The door opened letting in some less stale, but still horrible air. My body relaxed until the walls called out again. “Exit.”  
  
Unlike the previous 36 times the walls had decided to talk to me, this was a demand. I scrambled to my feet and approached the door. I was almost through the threshold before I turned back to get my pile of moss. I would continue to carry the moss with me for another 87 calls of my name. As I approached large room my legs stopped moving.  
  
Paranoia was setting in. The image of the large man coming towards me played in my mind. The thought of someone taking away my moss scared me more than any of the other fears that I had faced in my cell. It was the only comfort that I was able to find in Azkaban and I wasn’t about to lose it. I treated it as a small child would with a coveted blanket. I laid it the lump on the stairs, pushing it into a corner trying to make it blend in.  
  
I continued into the room with caution. The murmur of voices seemed to come from everywhere yet hang in the air all at the same time. None of the words were recognizable. It was the same people that were there during my last trip down. I sat at the same small table that was now next to the wall opposite my stairs. I went through the same motions. I watched the one leave and felt the lady with thin lips’ eyes on me. I watched her disappear up the stairs later.  
  
I walked around the room, picking my pace up with every step and then slowing down again before I got to a jog. I had passed the small table for the eighth time when I heard my name bombarding me from every direction.  
  
“Stanley Shunpike” I flinched but scurried to the place where I thought my stairs should be nonetheless. I was off by a few feet and rushed through the opening to make sure that it didn’t close without me again. That was a mistake I was not going to make twice.  
  
“Stanley Shunpike” Count 135. The air was getting colder and the shirt they had once given me still laid on the floor. By now it was home to a green mold and drenched from the sea air. Poison! They were going to poison me with my own shirt! I smothered it with my shoes. My feet now throbbing with pain, the poison had spread to my shoes! I kicked them in the corner with the shirt and watched as mold and moss slowly began to cover them again.  
  
“Stanley Shunpike” Count 153. I dragged myself up the stairs in hopes to avoid anyone else that may come in the large room. My bare feet padded against the damp stone. 67 counts ago I had shackles appear on my hands after I repeatedly tried to climb up the wall in my cell because the floor was disappearing beneath my feet. 5 counts later my continued attempts to not plummet to my death earned me a chain that attached my shackles to the wall. When I reached my cell the chains reattached.  
  
“Stanley Shunpike” Count 248. I ignored the sound curling up on the moss I had collected off the walls. Some of it stuck to my neck and got tangled in the rough stubble on my face. It was trying to suffocate me! I pulled at my skin trying to get it off so I could breath. I caused several cuts to my face in the process but soon I freed myself from all the moss leaving it in the middle of the room.  
  
“Don’t touch me!” It was the first words I had said since my attempt to talk to the walls. The sound of my own voice, so loud and imposing scared me almost as much as the moss. If I were to touch it, it would try to kill me again. “Don’t touch me!” I yelled once again before falling into a heap between the wall and moss. I watched it for the next 2 counts. The moss never moved after that. Each time I came back to my cell, I walked around the edge with my back to the wall watching for it’s attack the whole time.  
  
“Stanley Shunpike” Count 322. I hadn’t moved in 3 counts. I pulled my body closer together feeling the skin being rubbed raw beneath the metal. They were trying to skin me alive. I screamed like a mad man for almost 4 counts. No one cared. No one heard me.  
  
“Stanley Shunpike” Count 397. My name seemed louder then ever this time and the walls seemed to be closing in around me making the voice reverberate off the walls. I closed my eyes only to snap them back open again. I had managed to get myself to go anywhere from 3 to 4 counts without sleep. Each time I closed my eyes my wretched imagination took hold of me and pulled me into hopelessness. The most recent one was a never-ending fall down the stairs.  
  
I walked down the hall. The stairs sat there as though nothing had changed. I yelled and cursed at them in fear as tears rolled down my face. Making my way down them caused me more pain then if I had actually fallen. How could they not realize the pain they were causing me?!  
  
The large room was empty. The table had vanished 148 counts ago, the crate 55 before that. I walked around the room to stay awake. There was a storm moving in and the wind hollowed. I could hear the waves more violent then ever crashing over the rocks and against the side of Azkaban. Food appeared in the spot that the table had last occupied.  
  
I kicked it over and sat down. Moving hot pieces around I tried to make it into some sort of picture or word form. I just ended up with a bigger mess as my eyes forced themselves closed.  
  
I heard a loud crack and tumbling stones. This was all that my mind needed to intensify the heat and I woke up. “FIRE!” I yelled my voice echoing off the walls made it worse as I remember thinking the fire was increasing every time I heard it bounce back. “FIRE! FIRE!” I tried to run away from my skin only to scramble across the floor like a floundering fish. “FIRE!” I yelled as I continued to scrape my skin against the floor trying to get back to the stairs.  
  
“Imperio!” I heard from across the room and my body relaxed. All my fears were gone and I felt calm and at peace. I looked around the room to find the thin-lipped woman standing against the wall where her stairs normally where but instead there was a pile of stones. Her black hair was wildly going in every direction and she walked towards me as though she was falling to the side from her waist up. Her eyes held a passion and intent that I would never be able to understand. Her fingers twitched with delight by her side and she tilted her head from side to side. For such an off-putting woman I found myself being drawn to her, wanting to help Ms. Lestrange however she wished.  
  
Right now she wished to supply The Dark Lord with more followers.


End file.
